Friday, March 4

Laff Riot

Thing is, Max, this might ring true if you'd spent any of the two years since the invasion actually acknowledging any of our problems in Iraq before it became impossible to ignore them, instead of painting rosy pictures of their future outcome. Parenthetical weasel words like "(admittedly a big if)" don't count. A lot of folks (you weren't a solitary voice in the wilderness there, Max; rose-tinted glasses were all the rage) have been braced by a succession of feel-good images, toppling statues and deserted palaces and evil despot lice inspections, but what, exactly, do your hopes have to do with anything?

Is the argument supposed to turn now on the power of our magic? The Mystic Christian Mojo of George W. Bush, the reflection of his mighty Thunderbolt which bathes our Max in a nice warm glow (and never ask how many people fried so you could feel so toasty)? We'll see. We've bought over $200 billion cosmic example rays so far, without even a slowdown in sight. Twelve hundred plus Americans will not be applauding on the sidelines, to say nothing of those who've given right arms for the privilege. We're gonna need more than some nice thank you notes from the winning side.

And if we can't have a national debate that deals with complex questions in a complex fashion, maybe we should be asking who those neocons are laughing at?